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DDT

Though a German graduate student first synthesized it in 1873, DDT was not used as an insecticide until it was rediscovered by Dr. Paul Mueller, a Swiss entomologist searching for a long-term solution to the clothes moth, in 1939. When further research demonstrated that the synthetic chlorinated hydrocarbon was also effective against flies, lice, and mosquitoes, the military realized its potential for protecting troops against insect-borne diseases during World War II. Then, in 1948, after the substance was credited with staving off countless outbreaks of malaria, typhus, and related illnesses, Mueller was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine.